Pocatello Cardiology

Today I had my appointment with a very kind, understanding and successful doctor, Al Narraway, at Pocatello Cardiology. They have a great new facility right next to Porneuf Hospital. He said that my Mitral Valve Prolapse with regurgitation is very mild at this point. That means the amount of blood that flows back up into my heart when it's not supposed to is very minimal. Good News!!! He has decided to treat me with medication and watch me closely. I have to take a medicine called, Toprol, 3 times a day and go see him every 3 months until he gets my heart rate under control. Once he gets my heart rate where he wants it to be I only have to check in with him once a year. He doesn't see any reason for this condition to worsen as long as I take my medicine and keep my heart under control. We are so very relieved.

Thank you to friends and family for your concern and caring. I especially want to thank Marianne for watching the girls today so I could go to my appointment. They had so much fun at your house :)!!!

Dr. Narroway the Cardiologist

So we finally got the call from the cardiologist office, Dr. Narroway. I go in tomorrow at 2:00 in Pocatello. We will let you know what he says.

Mitral Valve Prolapse with Diastolic Dysfunction

Mitral Valve Prolapse with Diastolic Dysfunction (or Mitral Valve Prolapse with Regurgitation

Yes, this is what I have been diagnosed with. We are not quite sure exactly what this means or what it has in store for me yet.

Let me just tell you the story.......

On my way to work Tuesday morning I wasn't feeling very well, I actually hadn't been since the middle of the night on Saturday. I had just turned on the road to work when I passed my doctor's nurse so I decided to follow her into the clinic parking lot and ask her what she thought of what was going on.

What was going on: I woke up in the middle of the night Saturday with my heart racing and it wouldn't slow down. (I have had these episodes before because of my irregular heart beat.) I didn't sleep anymore that night. The next day it was still happening but I decided it was just because I had a fever with my cold and totally blew it off. Monday it still continued and I blew it off again. I really didn't notice it too much when I was up and about, mostly when I layed down to go to sleep. At this point I have not slept since Friday night. Monday night was bad again and layed awake all night. This brings me to Tuesday.

After talking to Jan she told me I needed to come right into the clinic and be checked out by the doctor. I followed her in and the first thing she did was take my pulse and blood pressure. My pulse was 165 and my blood pressure was 200 over ???. I can't remember exactly. I just know it was sky high. The doctor immediately hooked me up to the EKG to monitor my heart. They decided I needed some medicine to slow down my heart. At this point I had called my father-in-law to let him know what was going on and he came over to the clinic to be with me. They told me I had two choices: 1-Take the medicine orally and wait 45 minutes for it to work or 2-Take the medicine through and IV and get immediate relief. Layne said I should do the IV and I agreed, so away we went back to the EKG so they could monitor my heart while giving me the meds. The craziest, scariest thing I have ever felt in my life. No joking, not 5 seconds after injecting the meds into the IV my heart rate went from 165 to 80. Talk about scary. One second your heart is racing and the next there is nothing. Well, they got my heart rate and blood pressure under control enough they felt like I could leave with medication I have to take every day to control my heart rate. They scheduled me a test called an Echocardiogram for the next day.

Wednesday: The Echocardiogram with bubbles
I went for the echocardiogram with bubbles and learned nothing really. We watched the ultrasound of my heart, very cool. We watched them inject bubbles into my heart during the ultrasound, even cooler. But got no answers this day.

Thursday:
We were told we would have test results, but nothing.

Friday: The Answer
Today we learned I have what is called Mitral Valve Prolapse with Diastolic Dysfunction. That's really all we know. We did Google it to learn what it all means.
www.mayoclinic.com/health/mitral-valve-prolapse/DS00504 Basically on the left side of your heart you have the lower left ventricle and the upper left atrium. Between the two is the Mitral Valve. It's job is to seal the opening between the two while blood is being pumped through your heart. My Mitral Valve does not seal the opening, instead it prolapses into the upper left atrium like a parachute, thus allowing blood to flow back through the valve into the upper left atrium from the lower left ventricle and not pushing it out into the rest of my body. We found many people carry on to live a normal life and never have to be treated. Others have to be medicated the rest of their lives to control it. And some do have to have surgery to repair it. It all depends on how bad it is. I now have to meet with a Cardiologist to decide the next course of treatment. Hopefully I will be seeing him this next week.

Thank you to everyone for your concern and all your help, especially Michelle for watching the kids during my tests. We will keep everyone posted as soon as we know anymore.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

December 25, 2008
We had such a fun Christmas. The kids were so excited. Taysa especially. She could not go to sleep on Christmas Eve, she was still awake at 11:00pm. We got a lot of fun stuff this year. Santa brought us a Wii, which has been so much fun. We all like to play it. The girls all got pet shops, lip gloss, clothes, games, coloring stuff, movies, cds, etc.....We hope you all had a very merry Christmas too!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Christmas night playing the High School Musical Sing It game on the wii. Even Matt was singing.

Matt and Brooklyn boxing. Notice the picture of Brooklyn standing victoriously as she knocked her dad out and won!!!

Taysa and Brooklyn boxing. Taysa was pretty good too, she knocked me out and won. Boxing sure does make you tired and sore.

CHRISTMAS EVE

December 24, 2008
On Christmas Eve we did our usual. We went to me-ma and pa-pa's house for dinner, fun, presents and the nativity. This year grandma got a gingerbread house kit for each family and we all made them, but I didn't get any pictures. The kids always have so much fun with their cousins. Thanks me-ma and pa-pa for making such a great family tradition for Christmas Eve.


Included here are pictures of the nativity the kids put on and opening presents.


Great-Grandma VanOrden


Great-Grandma DaBell or grandma Bell as the kids say.

LET IT SNOW!!!

Monday December 22, 2008
Today we woke up to a bunch of snow. The kids are out of school for Christmas break, but I had to work. We all loaded up in the car and headed to Blackfoot, slowly.... It took about 45 minutes to get there when it usually takes 20 minutes, but we made it. About 1:00 I went to lunch. I noticed the weather and roads were getting pretty bad so I called Michelle who lives in Shelley too and she said I better head home or I may not make it. While I was still on the phone with her I got out of my car and walked around the other side to get my things out and OH NO!!! I locked my keys in the car. I went back into work and they told me to head home because they were closing the office. Obviously I couldn't leave. I called Matt and he said he could be down in about an hour with my spare set of keys. So I waited. In the meantime, Grandma and Grandpa went to pick up the girls from daycare. The snow was so bad there that a car was stuck in the driveway and blocking the entrance. The driveway is about a block long and grandma and grandpa had to stomp through the snow and get the girls and then carry them back through the snow to the truck. What a fun day :)! We finally made it home, but here are a few pictures of our sidewalk after Matt got done snowblowing.






The girls climbed up on the kitchen table and had so much fun watching Matt snowblow the driveway. He had them screaming when he would throw the snow up onto the window. They thought it was great!